Now word has come down from Orange County, Calif., that the Surf is indeed a go, despite the company's recent woes. The production version will make its debut at the Paris auto show later this year.

While purists might argue that a true shooting brake has only two passenger doors, given the spate of four-door "coupes" in the last decade, we posit that the new Karma fits the bill. However one chooses to classify the configuration, we really dig it, reminiscent as it is of the Ferrari 250 Drogo, the 1980 Mercury Colony Park that we knocked around in during the early 1990s and, of course, the mighty Lynx Eventer, the ne plus ultra of Jaguar XJS style.